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The 10 best sleep apps

The benefits associated with a good night's sleep are endless, yet a significant number of people are not getting enough sleep on a regular basis. We have identified the best sleep apps out there to maximize your forty winks and send you happily off to dreamland.

Sleep apps are designed to help you maximize your recommended 7 hours of sleep.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in 3 adults do not get their recommended hours of sleep each night. To promote optimal health and well-being, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society recommend that adults should sleep for at least 7 hours per night regularly.

Not getting the recommended hours of sleep is linked to weight gain and obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, heart disease, stroke, and a greater risk of death. Furthermore, sleeping for under 7 hours is associated with impaired immune system, a decrease in cognitive performance, and an increased risk of accidents.

Promoting regular sleep patterns and healthy sleep habits is known as sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene methods include going to bed and rising at the same time each day, avoiding large meals, caffeine, and alcohol before bedtime, and avoiding nicotine altogether.

Introducing a sleep app to your sleep hygiene routine may also help you to accomplish those 7 hours of bedded bliss. Here are Medical News Today's top 10 sleep app choices.

Relax Melodies

Relax Melodies is designed to help you, along with their community of 35 million other users, say goodbye to insomnia and get a full night of sleep. If you are having trouble relaxing into a restful sleep, then this is the app for you.

Select some relaxing sounds, add a dash of nature, combine with a melody, and hey presto: your sleep-inducing melody is complete. A choice of mindfulness meditations can be laid over the top of the mix to lure you soundly to sleep.

In addition to creating your own mixes, melodies shared by the Relax Melodies community can be accessed to discover new sound combinations. Integrating your favorite songs from your music library into the sound layers amplifies the soothing experience even further.

Sleep Cycle

Sleep Cycle tracks and analyzes your sleep patterns. Choose your wake up time, and the app will gently stir you from your slumber during your lightest phase of sleep to ensure that you wake up feeling rested, refreshed, and ready for the day ahead.

Your phone's built-in microphone picks up your movements as you sleep using sound and vibration analysis. The app analyzes the data to determine if you are in light sleep, deep sleep, or a dream state known as random eye movement (REM) sleep, and it pinpoints the optimal time to wake you up within a 30-minute window that you set.

The Statistics dashboard displays graphs and analysis of your sleep phases, and the Trends dashboard details your sleep quality percentage and sleep and wake up times, and it can even detect, track, and measure snoring. Monitoring sleep with Sleep Cycle is easy, hassle-free, and may give you an extra spring in your step.

Recolor

Recolor delivers the mammoth adult coloring book phenomenon in an app-sized package. More than 1,000 images are provided on Recolor to help you relax, rest your mind, and send you into a Zen-like meditative state. New pictures appear daily.

The Recolor library is organized alphabetically by theme with categories ranging from animals, pictures of food, low polyps, and patterns, to sport, pop art, scenery, and sea life.

Once your image is selected, the app offers a bold and uplifting color palette with various shades and hues to complete your work of art. The idea behind Recolor is to channel your anxiety into making a satisfying and creative accomplishment to relieve the stress in your life, and hopefully, help you to zone-out to sleep, too.

Sleep Time

Sleep Time uses an accurate state-of-the-art algorithm to analyze sleep and provides comprehensive insights into your sleep patterns. The app monitors your movements over the course of the night and generates customized data of your sleep cycles in easy-to-read graphs and charts.

Similarly to Sleep Cycle, Sleep Time's smart alarm learns to wake you during the perfect moment of your lightest sleep phase for ultimate revitalization. According to Sleep Time, when you wake up during a deep period of sleep, your body takes over an hour to fully awaken, leaving you feeling exhausted and drained.

Soundscapes - such as gentle waves and rain forest storms - that simulate the natural environment enhance your ability to drift off quickly. The sophisticated Insights dashboard gives a full report of your shut-eye so that you can find patterns and trends in the variables that affect your sleep.

Pillow

Pillow is an advanced sleep tracking and analysis alarm clock that monitors your slumber. Pillow has a clean, inspired design with an intuitive gesture-based interface.

Based on the most recent discoveries in sleep research, Pillow's cutting-edge algorithm uses motion and sound pattern detection to paint a complete picture of your sleep session. A comprehensive sleep stage diagram plots the times you are awake and in the REM, light, and deep phases of sleep, as well as provides sleep session statistics.

Relax & Sleep Well

Relax & Sleep Well is the creation of the clinical hypnotherapist and bestselling self-help author Glenn Harrold. This app is the go-to place to destress and overcome anxiety while instilling healthy sleep habits.

The app includes four free stress-busting hypnotherapy and meditation recordings. A further 80 of Harrold's highly acclaimed recordings can be purchased in-app, which cover topics including insomnia, anxiety, weight loss, mindfulness, confidence, and self-esteem to name a few.

Each hypnosis track includes background sound effects that have been selected specifically for their key and frequency to guide you into a deep level of relaxation. Harrold's calming voice combined with the subtle soundscapes will soothe you into a dreamy and quiet state.

Digipill

Beat insomnia, reduce stress, lose weight, increase motivation, and relax all through the power of a digital pill. Digipill wins hands down for innovation, using a formulated blend of language and sound to engage and activate the mind, change your thinking, and promote well-being.

Choose an audio pill based on your current needs, lay back with some high-quality headphones, and close your eyes. The first pill in your cabinet is free. Extra pills can be purchased in the Pharmacy, or unlimited access to all pills can be gained by subscribing to repeat prescriptions.

Each pill has a treatment time of around 30 minutes and features names such as "Sleep Deeply" (prescribed for a night of rest), "Peace of mind" (for easing anxiety), and "Power Nap" (for a refreshing snooze). Whether you need to calm down, seek motivation, or wind down before bedtime, Digipill has a tailor-made experience to help you.

Good Morning Alarm Clock

Rise and shine with Good Morning Alarm Clock. This app helps you to feel more rested and alert upon awakening with its built-in smart alarm. Good Morning Alarm Clock wakes you up during your natural waking phase to leave you feeling energized and alert.

Good Morning Alarm Clock is simple to use and provides essential statistics from the night before on a straightforward sleep graph. The app aggregates your statistics weekly to allow you to track sleep debt and sleep quality.

Relaxing sounds help lull you to sleep, or you can fall asleep or wake up to a playlist featuring your favorite songs. Based on your sleep goal, Good Morning Alarm Clock will alert you if you are getting less sleep than you need.

Pzizz

Pzizz is a sleep and power nap system that sends you to sleep at the push of a button. The app helps you to "fall asleep fast, stay asleep, and wake up feeling refreshed."

Pzizz applies the science of psychoacoustics, which is a branch of psychology that explores sound perception and its physiological effects. Through examining clinical studies, Pzizz has developed sound sequences and dynamic dreamscapes that are tailor-made for each portion of the sleep cycle.

The sleep-optimized mix of sound effects, music, and voiceover quietens your mind and sends you to sleep for the optimum amount of time to feel revived the next morning. Pzizz invites you to take their 7-day sleep challenge before going Premium to unlock their "ultimate sleep experience."

Noisli

Noisli exudes relaxation through the use of ambient sounds and colors that trigger inner peace. Noisli helps to cut out distracting background noises to achieve improved concentration and productivity while working, or to create a chilled audio environment for yoga, meditation, and sleep.

Like Relax Melodies, Noisli enables you to mix a personalized combination of sounds. Combine echoes of rain, wind, thunderstorms, leaves, and water streams with coffee shop bustle and white noise to create your perfect stress-free atmosphere. Save your favorite combinations and share them with friends and co-workers.

The built-in timer can be used as a countdown for taking a power nap or while falling asleep. Aside from using the app to stop insomnia in its tracks, Noisli helps you to reduce stress, relax while reading, and alleviate headaches and migraines, and, for parents, it may help your baby to sleep better.

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